PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

The Second New Deal

In his annual message to Congress on January 4, 1935, President Roosevelt outlined a program of social reform that signaled the beginning of the second New Deal. The chief beneficiaries of this phase of the New Deal were labor and small farmers. Most of the projects were geared to the employment of manual labor. Congressional passage of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 on April 8, 1935, extended the ECW until March 31, 1937. The current size of the work force was 300,000. Roosevelt issued a directive on April 10 to double enrollment to 600,000. To achieve this increase, the maximum age limit was raised to 28 and the minimum lowered to 17. By the fall of 1935, however, Roosevelt instructed Fechner to reduce the ECW back to 300,000 men by June 1, 1936.

Roosevelt's sudden reversal on the size of the CCC workforce was linked to his efforts to make the ECW a permanent government agency. While his New Deal social and economic programs were attacked by a coalition of Republican adversaries, Roosevelt was overwhelmingly re-elected for a second term in the 1936 elections. Democrats vastly outnumbered Republicans in both the House and Senate. In his annual budget message to Congress for January 5, 1937, Roosevelt lauded the ECW's accomplishments and asked Congress to pass legislation establishing the force as a permanent federal agency. The new agency was to be called the Civilian Conservation Corps. Congress passed legislation on June 28, 1937, formally establishing the CCC, but it did not make it a permanent agency; it only extended its operations for three more years. Roosevelt signed the bill into law. The reduction of CCC camps continued throughout 1937 and 1938. In 1939 another attempt was made to make the CCC a permanent agency and failed. No large-scale reductions in camps took place in 1939, but some camps were phased out or relocated to other areas.

On December 31, 1939, Robert Fechner died from complications following a heart attack. His successor was James L. McEntee, formerly Fechner's assistant director. With the beginning of World War II in Europe during the spring of 1940, Roosevelt turned his attention to defense planning. The trend in 1940 was to reduce the number of supervisory positions in the camps, with regional offices assuming some of the supervisory duties. Many of the camp supervisors were reserve military officers who were withdrawn for active military duty. Two resolutions were introduced in the House of Representatives to require eight hours per week of military tactics and drill to CCC enrollees. Opposition prevented them from being passed. Director McEntee, however, revamped CCC training and education programs to meet some of the needs of national defense, such as shop, mathematics, blueprint reading, basic engineering, and other skills considered vital to national defense.

By 1941 the national defense program with its higher paying jobs was competing with the CCC program and it became harder to attract recruits. Beginning in April, further camp reductions were made. A program adopted in January allowed CCC youths to be excused from work five hours per week if they would volunteer an additional 10 hours per week in national defense training. In August rules were adopted to drill all CCC enrollees in simple military formations, but no guns were issued. Twenty hours a week or more were to be devoted to general defense training, eight of which could be done during regular work hours. In September the number of camps was reduced further. The establishment of new camps in areas with national defense projects took precedent over camps in park areas.

The country's entry into World War II on December 8, 1941, led to the termination of all CCC projects that did not directly relate to the war effort. On December 24 the Joint Appropriations Committee of Congress recommended terminating the CCC no later than July 1, 1942. Roosevelt argued it should be maintained as it performed needed conservation work and served as a training program for pre-draft-age youth. Meanwhile, McEntee ordered the closing of all camps unless they were either engaged in war work construction or in protection of war-related natural resources, to take effect at the end of May 1942. Congress refused to appropriate funding to continue the CCC program during the summer of 1942. Instead they voted sufficient funds to terminate the program. Termination was completed by June 30, 1943.

Pipe Spring National Monument was one of many Park Service sites that served as a site for a CCC camp. While many national park units had Emergency Conservation Work camps in them performing unprecedented levels of development, this was not to be case at Pipe Spring. Because the Park Service did not administer it, its usefulness, in terms of monument development, was limited. Work assignments for the vast majority of CCC enrollees residing at Pipe Spring would be mostly outside the monument rather than in it. Pipe Spring would experience all the pitfalls of being occupied by an army of adolescent boys and very few of the benefits. While the camp was constructed in July and August of 1935, the main contingent of boys would not arrive until November 1935. Meanwhile, there was much to keep Custodian Heaton and planning officials fully occupied. The following section describes monument activities that immediately preceded the establishment of the CCC camp at Pipe Spring.